Mortgage Mole: Sold a dummy

Sold a dummy?

Mole’s media-savvy readers will no doubt be up to speed with the latest craze sweeping social media: the mannequin challenge.

For those not yet in the know, the challenge involves filming a group of motionless people who are all arranged in innovative poses, then sharing the results to comical effect.

Coreco Group is leading the charge for the mortgage market, with an impressive video featuring staff having a water fight, wrestling and (apparently) beating one another with a truncheon.

Of course, this could just be footage of a standard day at Coreco Towers. Either way, Mole encourages other firms to follow suit and share the results.

Rules written in black-and-white

Anyone familiar with the interior of the Investec offices will recollect the various zebra statues dotted around. Reflecting the firm’s South African roots, the zebras reveal a soft spot in the hearts of Investec staff and give a strong brand image to boot. Black-and-white never goes out of fashion, after all.

But Mole’s readers may be unaware of three important facts relating to the statues:

They are all 33 per cent larger than the average zebra

They are all named after Investec staff members, and

Investec’s management have issued firm instructions that no one is allowed to sit astride the zebras at corporate events, no matter how comedic the effect.

Mole is duly forewarned…

Cartoon tip

If 2016 has taught Mole anything, it is that political polls should no longer be trusted. The Conservative government. Brexit. US president-elect Donald Trump. All three came about despite polls confidently predicting otherwise.

In the face of such chaos, Building Societies Association chairman Dick Jenkins has decided to put his trust in the sage predictions of Bart and Marge Simpson. Speaking at the annual BSA lunch, Dick said the cartoon duo had predicted that Trump would one day become US president – 16 years ago.

“They did get his colour wrong, but only slightly,” Dick noted.

Lunch and learn

Also at the BSA lunch was housing minister Gavin Barwell (pictured), who addressed the assembled mortgage grandees on the subject of offsite housing construction and the housing crisis more generally.

Noting that the number of adults obliged to live with their parents until well into their 30s was increasing – due to the inability to afford a deposit on a home – Barwell drily observed: “As the parent of a teenager, that is something I have a vested interest in doing something about.”

Mole hopes the mortgage market feels reassured that the housing minister is 100 per cent on the case when it comes to solving the property supply crisis.

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